


Yellow Car Cab

by keerawa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, POV Outsider, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 01:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4371899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might as well be part of The Knowledge. Every London cab-driver knows why its worth swerving across two lanes of traffic to pick up Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yellow Car Cab

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/profile)[watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) JWP 2015 Prompt #18, The Games We Play. Unbeta'd.

"208 Sheen Road, and quickly," said the tall, well-dressed man, before his friend was even inside the cab.

"Of course, sir," Deepak said, pulling out into heavy traffic, wondering if he'd hit the jackpot and managed to pick up Sherlock Holmes as a fare. The tall man did look like Holmes, but Deepak had been wrong before.

Not a minute had gone by when the man huffed impatiently. "It's going to take forever, this time of day. We'll be stuck in this cab for at least twenty-seven minutes, and my phone's nearly out of charge."

"Yellow car," said the short one.

"What? Where?"

"The mini down the side street over there, see it?"

"What about it?"

"Nothing. It's just a game. When you see a yellow car, you say, 'yellow car'."

"Well that's pointless. And the mini wasn't even yellow; it was Tangerine Scream."

"Tangerine ... do you actually know the proper names for all the car colors?"

"Of course. Being able to accurately identify paint transfers from vehicles has proven invaluable in several cases."

Deepak wondered if those were criminal cases, or some other kind.

"That's amazing! Here, what about the sports car up ahead?"

"That's Solar Yellow. Very similar to Saffron Yellow, but with a metallic flake that shows up in direct sunlight. Also, Saffron Yellow paint was used on Lotus cars before 2006, Solar Yellow after. That's a 2010 model."

Deepak heard the click of a phone taking a photo, followed by the slow tip-tap of typing. That was very promising. It must be Sherlock Holmes. Or some posh, car-obsessed lawyer.

"We could get photos of all the different car colors, label them, and put them up on your website. Car enthusiasts would probably go nuts for a searchable database, and it'd be useful to the police as well."

Police? Evidence was mounting up.

The tall one sighed. "Sounds tedious."

"Unlike your analysis of 243 brands of tobacco ash?"

That was the clincher. Sherlock Holmes was the only man in London who would put something like that on his website.

"The tobacco ash analysis was _interesting_. I was able to smoke as part of the experiment, and the website allowed me to document my findings. I already know all the car colors."

"Well, I don't. Not yet, anyway. You said knowing the paint colors helped you solve some cases?"

"Mmm. The most recent was an armoured car heist –"

"Yellow car."

"The Subaru? Mimoza Yellow. With a 'z'. At first it seemed that the transferred paint on the armored car was fresh, when actually ..."

Twenty-eight minutes later Deepak dropped the two men off at a building swarming with police. The short one, who must be John Watson, left a decent tip before jogging off after Holmes.

Deepak parked in a nearby lot and pulled out his phone to tweet and Instagram a dozen photos, #yellowcar, #sherlockholmes. That should be good for a thousand new followers by morning, he decided, patting his Green Badge with great satisfaction before heading back into the City.

**Author's Note:**

> John didn't make it up. There really is a game called [Yellow Car](https://youtu.be/nq8KrAx26mM). Yes, people play it. No, really, they do!


End file.
